McNavigating towards a global mobile application

No introduction needed. McDonald’s is a global powerhouse and one of the biggest chain of restaurants ever. What started as us helping out with a simple restaurant finder eight years ago has bloomed into a long term partnership spanning several different projects, including a new global app.

McNavigator

We have worked closely with McDonald’s since 2009, from production company on a national level to strategic digital partner on a global level. Back in App Stores infancy Apegroup were approached by McDonald’s to create an easy way to find your nearest restaurant.

As web content became increasingly better at rendering inside applications entire campaigns could be held there. After several successful campaigns the application had become McDonald’s Swedens largest owned channel.

Going global

What started off as a means to reward users in campaigns soon became a pivotal feature: Offers. The application had now become an efficient way to reward customers. When Denmark, Norway and Finland jumped onboard we had to focus on scale making sure it could easily be deployed and localised.

Russia, Japan, Switzerland and UK followed followed and behind the scenes our solution grew into a valuable business tool, integrated with the sales systems, that allowed more valuable analytics.

One App Strategy

After working with McDonald’s for nearly a decade, the old process of managing multiple markets began crumbling under its own weight.

In three months we rewrote the application from the ground up in order to remove bottlenecks and serve market needs better. The new app is now active in Denmark and Greece with several more markets and exciting possibilities around the corner.

McDonald's campaign

BeatQuiz

Together with DDB and Spotify, we built and designed the mobile music quiz game BeatQuiz. McDonald’s have Spotify for Business implemented at all their restaurants in Sweden, so every restaurant play different music at all times. This game gives you questions based on the music playing at the restaurant you’re at, synced in real-time. You can play alone and climb the leaderboards or challenge friends who are also at the restaurant.

Design

Based on the concept from DDB we did the product design. BeatQuiz is a colourful experience with a lot of visual elements and moving parts. Playing the game is mostly a sound experience so we took inspiration from equalizers and sound waves to create a connection between the mobile visual interface and the music coming out of the speakers. Taking cues from video games we added subtle animations to highlight actions.

How It Works

McDonald'sProduct Data

Soundtrack Your BrandPlaylist backend

Google Cloud PlatformLogic, server and scaling

Spotify and MusikkiAPI

This is hands down one of the most technically advanced projects in the history of Apegroup. The questions had to be synced to both the music playing at the restaurant and all players simultaneously. In order to achieve this we built a mediating layer connecting McDonald’s restaurant and product data, to Soundtrack Your Brand playlist backend. The game also uses the Spotify metadata API to create custom questions for every song. The whole game is built using web technologies, and are shown in the native iOS and Android apps using web views.

McDonald's campaign

Dealcatcher

McDonald’s wanted to engage younger target groups over the summer months in order to increase the guest count at their restaurants during July and August. Inspired by the classic 60s social game ”Twister”, we took it to another level with DDB. Using four fingers on the screen at the same time, the players were spurred on to win better deals which they could trade in at their local McDonald’s restaurant.